The Art of Knowing Better

The birds were quiet now. The last call of the crow and cry of the robin had disappeared with the setting sun. I could tell that the wind, which had died down during the early part of the evening, was picking up once more, rustling the trees and making the smaller ones bow down to the moon. Another evening in Otter Lake.

Outside my room, the summer insects buzzed and crawled across the window screen, trying to get at the light that burned above me. I turned it off. I wanted the quiet of this summer night, as I listened to the village wind down. Another day to be knocked off the calendar. The universal rituals that end all days around the world vary little, even in this small Ojibway community. Everything was finishing as it normally did.

On my bed in my mother’s house, I lay there waiting for the next link in the unalterable chain of evenings that make up my Otter Lake life. Without it the day couldn’t finish. Not officially, anyway.

Except he was late this evening. Not too late, but later than normal. Ever since I could remember, since we had moved into this house, even during the winter when the snow would muffle—but not quite completely hush—his footsteps, this would be the beginning of my morning and the end of my day. Tonight I wondered if maybe the wind was carrying away the familiar shuffle of his feet on the dirt road, that he might have already gone by, hidden by Mother Nature.

In the larger scale of life, the sound of this old man’s footfalls wasn’t all that important to me. I mean, I barely knew the man. But this was like the old clock my grandmother owned when we lived in the old house. Like old Tommy Hazel, it had its place. The clock was an ancient thing, ornately carved in a cheap and gaudy way. It sat on a mantle high above the living room and had to be wound twice a day with a funny-looking key. My grandmother would always curse that it kept losing eight minutes every twelve hours.

As a young child, I remember looking all through the house for those missing eight minutes, not knowing where they could have been lost. The more time the clock lost as the weeks and months passed, the more I knew was waiting to be found. Every time she turned that key, I was sure I could see eight tiny minutes fall from the old clock into a crack in the floorboards directly underneath.

And still it sat, looking down on us, ticking away loudly. As a kid, I always imagined I could see a face—not a pleasant one—peering out from the carved and shadowed wood. It was watching me, angry about those missing eight minutes getting away. At night I could hear its ticking echo through the house, bouncing off one wall and then another until it ended up on my bed: tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Then I would fall asleep.

When we moved to the new house–modern, with electricity, indoor plumbing and a television—the first thing I noticed was no more ticking. The house was silent except for a long-distant hum somewhere buried in the walls. Without the ticking from the angry clock, I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned for three nights until I did sleep, however fitfully, from sheer exhaustion. It was months before the electrical humming would allow me to sleep soundly. Even then I would lie awake, consciously straining to hear the ticking.

I remembered asking my mother what had become of the clock. She had told me it was still over at the old house, still with my grandmother. Probably still losing eight minutes every twelve hours.

I heard a stone being kicked and the tell-tale thuck of it hitting a tree. I hadn’t missed him. He had officially ended this summer day. From behind the window screen, I saw him passing the house as he normally did: head hung low, eyes on the ground, shoulders slouched, his knees perpetually bent, like his legs could never make a full commitment to walk. His shiny hair was combed back in its usual style, vaguely reminiscent of a fifties’ ducktail.

Old Tommy Hazel was at least sixty, but looked twice that age. So did his clothes. Every morning, as long as we’d been here in this house, he would make his way along the road into the village, usually to get drunk, if he wasn’t drunk already. And every evening, his mission completed, he would retrace his steps back to his place of origin; somewhere in the northern part of the reserve, which is largely swamp. The place has a Native name, but it’s hard to spell and harder to pronounce, unless you’ve been born speaking the language. And the name’s not really that translatable. It might be loosely interpreted as: “The kind of place white people like to explore for no practical reason except to say ‘because it’s there!’”

Old Tommy Hazel was a local legend, a mystery, verging on a bogeyman. Even though the man had lived in Otter Lake all his life and everybody knew him, nobody actually knew where he lived, other than the fact that it was deep in the swamp somewhere. And nobody really wanted to know, either. Except me.

I was curious. After watching this man walk by my house for the last twenty-odd years, I couldn’t help wondering where his daily journey began and ended. I had no logical reason for wanting to see with my own eyes where he lay his head down at night. What little I’d seen of his life didn’t interest me much. In my life, I’d said perhaps a hundred words to him. We were supposedly distantly related, but that’s nothing. Everybody in Otter Lake is.

Still, the question of Old Tommy Hazel—where dawn found him every morning and where day left him every night—nagged me. Nagged me to the point where I would listen more intently than I should every morning as he walked by, and every night as he staggered home. I would imagine how long he had been walking. How winded were his sixty-year-old lungs? He was an old man, with an alcoholic’s body; he couldn’t walk that far. But then again, you can’t always judge an alcoholic by the standards we apply to ourselves. My grandmother used to say that God loves fools and children, and that drunks could be classified as fools for the lifestyle they’ve chosen. It does, however, seem that drunks have a unique ability to survive what they do to their bodies, and whatever the fates decide to throw at them. I’ve heard about drunks falling asleep in snowbanks, getting hit by cars, falling off hills, committing numerous other atrocities against themselves, then getting up and walking away. No worse for wear.

Old Tommy Hazel had a home somewhere out in the swamp, and for no reason other than curiosity, stupidity, and perhaps a little of that “because it’s there!” philosophy, I wanted to see it.

I slipped out of my bedroom and went to the back door, as I’d been waiting to do. I allowed him a few minutes’ head start. I ran silent, I ran deep, as I exited the house on my mission. I didn’t have to see him to follow him. He had a noisy, shuffling walk, as if the effort of lifting his boots more than an inch off the ground was a waste of time. I, on the other hand, in an effort to walk like a ghost through the forest, dug deep into my soul, determined to find that “inner-Indian” many in the white world think we automatically possess. I found myself dodging thorn branches, hanging vines, bushes that grabbed at me like one of those black holes scientists are always talking about. The further Old Tommy Hazel got into the swamp, the wetter my sneakers (and I use the term loosely) became. My “inner-Indian” was evidently on vacation.

But the marshy ground allowed me to drop back another hundred feet or so. Tracking became easier. The footprints from those big, industrial workboots he favoured left deep and unmistakable tracks in the soft, wet ground. They were easy to follow, sponge-like impressions slowly filling up with water, leaving behind oblong puddles through the bush. Even at this distance I could hear him huffing, his blood straining to turn the oxygen and alcohol into usable fuel for his trek through the swamp. Still he kept walking.

I trudged along behind him for about half an hour, careful not to get too close or curse too loudly when my sneakers were sucked off my feet by the oozing mud. I was also aware of the growing darkness, and the emergence of night noises. The sun had set not that long ago, but the twilight that happens on lazy summer days always gives the impression that it will last longer than it really does. This is not good when you’re in a swamp, a fair distance from home, in the dark, following the town drunk to God knows where. Puddles in the ground are hard to follow home by moonlight. In retrospect, the whole evening might not have been such a good idea. I should have known better.

So, lost in my increasing concern over my situation, I didn’t notice that the thwuck, thwuck, thwuck sound of Old Tommy Hazel’s big old work boots had stopped. Only the sounds of the night accompanied my heavy breathing. Suddenly realizing this, I held my breath and kneeled down behind a half-dead cedar tree. I immediately noticed two things: first, I could just barely make out Old Tommy Hazel’s laboured breathing, now more calm, hovering somewhere to my right. Second, my right knee was wet from kneeling in a swamp.

The tell-tale sound and flare of a match being lit drew my attention to the old man’s location. Just a couple of dozen feet ahead of me, beside what appeared to be a small lake. In actuality it was no more than a less-treed opening in the swamp around us.

As he lit his cigarette, I saw that he was sitting comfortably on a weathered log jammed into the fork of two trees growing side by side. The top of the log was shaved or hacked off into a level platform, making for a comfy bench.

The light went out, and he disappeared back into the growing gloom. He sat there, probably just looking out over the water, thinking his Old Tommy Hazel thoughts. As he thought, I kneeled, first on one knee, then the other, then back again, the fallen cedar offering me scant cover, even in the growing darkness.

I had long ago given up maintaining any semblance of dryness, and accepted the growing dampness with resignation. Time passed and still he sat there.

I must have counted over a dozen cigarettes, with no signs of movement from Tommy. A lot of time had passed, but I had long since lost track of it. Instead, I found my attention and frustration turn towards the minute denizens of every swamp which were quickly becoming infatuated with me. I no longer heard Old Tommy Hazel’s breathing. The only noise I was conscious of was the whining and buzzing of probably a thousand skimmag, better known as mosquitoes, all calling my name.

If I slapped at them like every fibre in my body was telling me to, I would certainly alert Old Tommy Hazel. If I let them bite me, I would look like I had chicken pox the next morning. The only solution was to move an available arm slowly, hoping to crush the little biters without generating enough sound to travel the thirty feet or so to the old man. Of course, half of them escaped before being crushed, leaving behind red polka dots. And my slow movements allowed a dozen others to land in the meantime. Evidently, my only recourse was not a viable one. The evening was not turning out the way I had anticipated.

With my body soggy on the lower half and itchy on the top half, I had had just about enough discomfort for one night and was more than willing to announce my presence to Old Man Hazel and the whole swamp, and to follow up that announcement with a speedy retreat home. Provided I could find the direction of home.

Swearing to myself in misery, I stood up, shaking my arms and head violently in an attempt to dislodge the mosquitoes from my body. It was then that I noticed Old Tommy Hazel standing in front of me. Actually, slouching in front of me would be a better description. He was watching me. And still more mosquitoes came.

But they didn’t seem to be bothering him. By the light of the three-quarter moon, I couldn’t see one flying insect on his tanned and lined face; his hands never moved to destroy a single annoying skimmag. It seemed that the pungent aroma emanating from him, an odour derived from a lifetime of drinking which seeped through his skin, appealed to the mosquitos even less than to me.

His eyes squinted in the dimness. Self-conscious, I could do little but squirm.

“Hi.” What else does one say in such a situation?

He looked at me closer, then turned away without even a shrug, returning to his seat by the lake, silent as the image of the fading moon reflected in the water.

I saw the strike of a match. I guess meeting me in a swamp meant time for another cigarette. Studying the situation, debating in my mind, reaching a decision, I joined Old Tommy Hazel. He didn’t look up. Just gazed out onto the open swamp. Over by the water there seemed to be more of a breeze, giving me a brief respite from the mosquitoes.

“I don’t know if you know who I am but you walk by my house every day. Actually twice a day.” Options for starting a conversation in a swamp can be limited.

Old Tommy Hazel switched the cigarette from his right hand to his left, and then reached into his coat pocket, bringing out what looked like an unopened mickey of rye. Not one of the more popular brands, either. With a surprisingly quick flick of his wrist, he broke the seal and unscrewed the cap. Raising it halfway to his mouth, he paused, and for the second time looked at me.

I don’t know if it was the moonlight, but his eyes looked like they had a transparent film covering them. My grandmother used to say eyes like that were covered in memories. He raised up the freshly-opened bottle that smelled so similar to the old man himself, offering it to me. Realizing this was a potential test, I accepted the bottle and took a drink. Again, I should have known better. It burned. More than burned. I normally like rye, but with a little Coke and a lot of ice. And a better, smoother, more expensive brand. Trying not to cough, I handed it back, my eyes tearing.

He took the bottle and drained a good half of its contents, his eyes never leaving the water, his hand never shaking. Old Tommy Hazel then offered it back to me, his saliva still wet on the bottle. Not caring about tests anymore, I declined.

“So, you live around here?” I actually sounded casual.

He looked up at the stars. “Time. I’ve lost track of the time.” He spoke in Ojibway.

“It’s a little after ten, I think.” I answered in English since, as my mother and grandmother complain, my Ojibway is too rusty to be called conversational. But I could understand it well enough.

He shook his head. “No. How old am I?”

I blinked at him for a second, trying to make sure I understood what he said.

“How old are you? Is that what you asked?”

He nodded and finished off the last half of the rye, again without blinking an eye. With a grunt, he leaned back and tossed the bottle out into the water. It landed almost dead centre in the small lake. The ripples patterned outwards, making the moon dance in front of us. Somewhere at the bottom of that tiny expanse of water, I wondered how big a pile of empty bottles there was.

I cleared my throat. “I think you’re somewhere in your sixties. Maybe sixty-five. You don’t know?”

His attention returned to his cigarette. “I forgot. You forget so much. Or try to. Or try not to. So much depends … ” Silence. Even the mosquitoes were quiet. “So old,” he added.

“You know something else? I could have been somebody. I wanted to. Had plans. Had dreams. Wanted a wife and children. Could have had them. Could have. But I don’t. Sixty-five.” His head leaned slightly to one side, the thoughts weighing too much.

In my travels I had discovered there are two types of drunks: the aggressive variety who are easy to identify, and the passive, emotional kind. The belligerent kind force their drunkenness onto the world, whether the world wants it or not. They are outgoing. The more placid drunk works in the opposite manner. They invite or welcome the world into their reality, often trying to fill a hole in their existence with whoever happens to be around. They smile, joke and sometimes cry.

One tends to view town drunks as caricatures, seldom as people with a history or a soul. It must have been a long time since Old Tommy Hazel had talked to anybody other than a liquor store clerk. Who was willing to listen? As it was, I was feeling uncomfortable. “Old To … I mean Mr. Hazel, sorry for … ”

“It wasn’t so wrong. I know it. The Bible makes exceptions. It wasn’t wrong, was it?” For the third time he looked at me, searching for an answer I didn’t know.

“I’m not sure … ”

“It wasn’t!” This time his voice was more insistent. Whatever was or wasn’t wrong was the core of this man. Cheap amateur psychology would also suggest maybe this was at the root of his drinking, too. Some people are born drunks, others become them for a variety of reasons, most of which are listed in a million country songs. Old Tommy Hazel had a sign on him a mile wide that said this life was chosen for him, not embraced by choice.

“It wasn’t.” Softer this time. “Wasn’t.” Smaller, almost silent, his voice seemed to falter.

“Mr. Hazel, what wasn’t so wrong?”

Out of nowhere, a coughing spasm hit the old man. He leaned over, his chest and body wracked by fits of deep coughing that didn’t sound healthy. For three or four minutes he was plagued by continuous phlegmy upheavals which finally subsided. Staggering to his feet though still out of breath, he pushed me aside and continued his journey into the swamp. “It’s late,” I heard him mumble to himself. He quickly disappeared into the gloom, leaving me behind with as much of a mystery as before, perhaps even a bigger one.

On my long and confused journey home through the quagmire, I thought I heard a sudden splash far off in the direction I’d come from. I found myself hoping it wasn’t Old Tommy Hazel.

The next morning and a bottle of calamine lotion later, I asked my mother about Old Tommy Hazel. She didn’t know any more than I did about him, but she did have one important suggestion.

“Ask your grandmother. This was a much smaller place back then, and everybody of her generation grew up together. She can probably help you more than I’m able to.” A good idea. One I decided to pursue.

My grandmother lived alone in the old house I grew up in. When I arrived, she was sitting out on the porch, watching the cars pass, an adored pastime of hers. She had always told me I was her favourite grandchild, but then again, she told that to my sister and about a dozen other cousins of mine. She was a very diplomatic grandmother.

She squinted when she saw me. I itched all over. “What happened to your face? Got a couple bites there. Out late last night, were ya?”

“Kind of. Just being stupid. Granny, what do you know about Old Tommy Hazel?”

“Old Tommy Hazel?!” My grandmother let out a short, throaty laugh. “Stupid things and Tommy Hazel go together. He’s a drunk. What more do you need to know?”

“Where does he live?” I asked.

She looked at me. As best as I could tell, trying to figure me out. She took the most direct route. “What’s it to you? You been talking to him? What did he say to you?”

I started to answer when I heard a sliver of my childhood coming from an open window just behind her. It was the familiar tick, tick, tick. I visit my grandmother quite frequently, but I’m always five years old when I hear that sound, or see that clock on that ledge looking down at me. And when I hear that ticking I have to fight to stay awake. Pavlov has nothing on that clock.

“I’m talking to you, boy,” said my grandmother. I was awake again.

“Can’t a guy just be curious?”

“Raccoons don’t root in your garbage unless they smell something. What are you smelling?”

I gave her my best exasperated look. She gave me a better one. I tried a different tack: “Nobody in the village knows where he lives. All anybody says is it’s somewhere back in the swamp. I just want to know if he has a house back there or does he sleep in a tree or something. I’m not up to mischief or anything. I’m just curious. Mom thought you might know. That’s all. Really!”

My grandmother was silent for a moment. Two cars went by and her eyes quickly scanned them. “You pick the weirdest things to get curious about. I mean, where Old Tommy Hazel spends his nights? You have too much time on your hands.”

A large cloud passed overhead, plunging everything into shade. My grandmother’s eyes returned to me.

“Did you know him? You two are about the same age, aren’t you?”

She leaned back in her chair. “I knew Old Tommy Hazel way back, before you, your mother, even before I married your grandfather. Except he wasn’t called Old Tommy Hazel then. Just Thomas Hazel. He was named after one of the Apostles. A good name for a good man.” Another car went by but she never saw it. I’m not sure she saw me.

“But Grandma, you just said he was a loser.”

“He was a good looking man back then. Tall, hard worker, even went to church. Sure wasn’t the man you see today. Not by a long shot.”

“Did something happen?”

She smiled. “I guess you could say that. For a while, a long time ago, we were bus’gems.”

It took a moment for the translation and the reality of that sentence to filter into my consciousness. Bus’gem is an Ojibway word for boyfriend or girlfriend. The path to Old Tommy Hazel’s home was taking me along a few unusual stops.

My reaction must have caught her eye because she gave one of those throaty little laughs of hers. “Don’t look so surprised, you. When I was young, I was young!” She threw off the final word of that sentence with more enthusiasm than I’d seen from her in a long time. I tried to see her being “young”! The shawl and rocking chair didn’t help.

“And Thomas Hazel was young too. I always thought we were a good match. He made me laugh, and I made him work harder than he ever did in his life. He was always buying me presents, you see. Always blamed his bad back on me. Like I held a gun to his head to make him work so hard.” She laughed again, but it wasn’t as joyful as it should have been.

“We’d been seeing each other for a couple of months when our fathers put a stop to it. Told us both we should know better. It wasn’t right, they said. In fact, his father even called it evil.”

I knew something was missing. “Called what ‘evil’?”

She looked at the road again even though no cars were passing. “We were cousins. First cousins at that. They were right, we should have known better. It was wrong.” After that she was silent. I sat there, trying to imagine Old Tommy Hazel as my potential grandfather, and me with two heads playing a banjo. It was all too odd for me.

My grandmother cleared her throat and continued. “I had always felt a little uncomfortable with the whole thing, but he said it didn’t matter. Thomas said he knew it was right. Felt it, he said. It was even in the Bible in places, you know. As long as it had God’s blessing. Adam and Eve’s kids populated the whole world. And he was sure we had God’s blessing. I thought that was a stretch but I was too fond of him to care.”

I tried imagining that man I met in the swamp saying those things to my grandmother, but the two distinct images were having a problem connecting in my head.

“After we stopped seeing each other, our fathers went out of their way to make sure we never met up again, or spent time alone anymore, which was hard to do in a small village like this. I grew to accept the situation. Women are a lot more realistic about these things. But Thomas never did. Never. Some months later, I started to see your grandfather, and a year later we were married.”

The clouds passed from in front of the sun, and the dazzling brightness of the summer day momentarily blinded me. Grandma closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair.

“I remember coming out of the church with your grandfather on our wedding day. All the people were there on the steps, throwing things and cheering. All those smiling happy faces. Except for Thomas. He was standing across the road, a little ways to the left. All alone, hands in his pockets. He was watching us. I tried not to look at him, but I could feel him staring at us. I almost tripped coming down those stairs, but your grandfather caught me. Once I righted myself, I forced myself to look up. Thomas had turned his back and was walking down the street, away from us. I think it was then and there that Thomas became Old Tommy Hazel. I don’t think we’ve talked since. And I think that was the last time he was sober. At least that’s the way it seems.

“It was two days later when I was going outside to fetch some water for my new husband’s coffee. When I opened the door, I hit something.” She pointed with her thumb through the open window in the direction of the tick, tick, tick I still heard. “It was a large clock, made of wood, that someone had left on our porch. There was no name, no wrapping, no clue of any kind. Just a big old clock.”

“Old Tommy Hazel?” I asked.

She smiled a faint smile. “I think so. I don’t have any proof, and he’d probably deny it, but I’m sure Tommy left it. He always liked to buy me gifts. I guess this was one last one. Sort of a reminder of different times, maybe. Or that he’d be waiting. And much like Old Tommy, it never worked properly since.” She shook her head like she was shaking off cobwebs.

“All this talking to answer your silly question. I have no idea where he lives in the swamp. He moved out on his family soon after I got married. His family tried to help him, but he kept pretty much to himself. Can’t help an alcoholic if he don’t wanna be helped.”

So that was it. I went looking for Old Tommy Hazel’s home and instead found a story, a family link in fact, to how this man ended up living in that swamp. And my grandmother was at the centre of it all.

“And you haven’t talked to him since?”

“What’s done is done. He’s an old foolish drunk now. He didn’t have to become that way. He could have gone on with his life, found another woman. Done something good in this world. Instead, he’s Old Tommy Hazel. Ain’t got no reason to talk to him.”

Both her reasons no longer lived. Her father had long been dead, way before I was born. And my grandfather, her husband, had passed away a good seven years ago that winter.

“I know what you’re thinking, boy, and no need for that. The past is the past, and there’s no way to relive it unless you have one of them time machines I see in them movies you like. Lives aren’t meant to be lived again. I’m too old to start walking backwards. Let it be. Besides, I’ve got better things to do than waste my time with an old foolish drunk.”

“That’s kind of harsh,” I said. That didn’t sound like my grandmother—however the subtext did suggest to me a certain memory from high school: “perhaps the lady doth protest too much.”

“It’s true that I do feel sorry for the man, I don’t deny that. The way Thomas spends his days is a disgrace and to be pitied. But he made his choice. I wish there was something I could do, but that was forty years ago. Our days together are long apart. If God wants me to talk to that man again, then let him tell me in his own way. He knows better than you or me. Now leave me be.”

Before taking my exit, I excused myself to use my Grandmother’s bathroom, her pride and joy since the renovations eleven years ago. As I entered her house, I heard the clock again. Its tick hadn’t changed over the years, except maybe that it sounded more tired and worn. And the shelf seemed a bit lower now, or perhaps I was just a bit higher.

I couldn’t help thinking of that clock as the time machine my grandmother had imagined earlier. And Old Tommy Hazel leaving it behind for her. Or, as my grandmother believed, it was God looking down on us all, remembering a forty-year-old relationship.

Several days later, my supply of Kraft Dinner was running dangerously low and I was on a weekly pilgrimage to the local village store to stock up. As chance would have it, I decided on that beautiful summer day to take the path through the woods. Most of my relatives believe that if a trip involves walking farther than the length of your driveway, you take the car. Luckily, I hadn’t reached that stage in my adulthood yet.

The path cuts through a small abandoned quarry and then, for a few hundred feet, it runs along the edge of the swamp. Under my feet the ground was still spongy, making me conscious of the dampness that still lingered in my sneakers.

It wasn’t long till I came to the part of the path where Old Tommy Hazel leaves the civilized part of our village for his nightly excursions into his unknown world.

As I expected, his bootprints had made their mark in the soft soil. Not that long ago it seemed, because the water was still leaking into the deep impressions. This in itself was unusual, for it was midday, long before and long after Old Tommy usually used the trail. The normal sequence of events had been broken.

That was only half of it. Running parallel to the bootprints were a pair of smaller shoe prints, barely two-thirds of Old Tommy Hazel’s boot size. A couple of times the work boots had stopped and shifted position, as if to help somebody over a log, or a large puddle. They trailed along the swamp’s edge, and finally turned east, disappearing into its centre.

God must have graciously decided to bless Otter Lake with a sign. Or perhaps it was that I had stopped on my way to the washroom at my grandmother’s, and stuck my jackknife into the keyhole where my grandmother winds the clock. I jiggled the knife until I felt something snap deep in the mechanism. My grandmother must have tried to wind the clock later that same day, but I guess the time had just run out.

Or maybe it had something to do with the next morning when Old Tommy Hazel had been on his way into town. Before he had had a chance to hit the liquor store, I waylaid him as he passed in front of my house. My mother was at work, so no one noticed the strange man I put in the shower, gave a clean pair of pants, underwear, t-shirt and shoes (which I’m hoping to get back some day). Nor would she have heard me tell the startlingly different, almost presentable man about a broken clock, an old lonely woman, a sign from God, and the concept of second chances. God knows it’s hard to wipe away forty years of self abuse in one morning but I was willing to give it a chance.

I tried to do some mental calculations about those missing eight minutes every twelve hours. If those minutes were all added up over the last forty-odd years, all that time hidden under the floorboards and in the cracks in the walls, they would come to roughly six months or so. That’s a lot of extra time she had coming to her. My grandmother may not have known better, but for the first time in a long while, I felt I did.

And maybe someday, if she finds the time or the interest, Grandma might just tell me where Thomas Hazel lives, way back in that old swamp.